2010

NPD has totalled video game revenue for December 2010 and the entirety of 2010. It was another down month, and a down year overall for the retail video game market. Hardware sales, save for the X360, which increased, dropped off dramatically in December 2010 leading to big drop offs in total revenue and even software sales. December figures reached $ 5.06b for the five weeks to Jan 1, 2011, with hardware sales at $ 1.84b, software sales at $ 2.37b ($ 2.53b with PC from brick & mortar retail), and accessories at $ 853m. Last year, hardware sales were $ 2.19b, software sales were $ 2.57b, and accessories were $ 778m for a grand total of $ 5.55b. Thus industry revenues fell 9%. For the year, software totalled $ 9.36b ($ 10.06b with PC), down from $ 10.60b in 2009. Hardware fell from $ 7.19b in 2009 to $ 6.29b in the USA. Accessories, lead by Kinect and Move, did grow to $ 2.93b from $ 2.59b. Overall though, 2010 USA video game sales fell to $ 18.6b from $ 19.7b in 2009.

Much of the problem for the year is hardware sales. This was particularly true in December 2010.

             Dec  2010         Nov  2009       M/M      Dec 2009       Y/Y

DS        2,500,000+        1,508,000      +66%+   3,310,000      -24%

Wii       2,360,000         1,270,000       +86%     3,810,000     -38%

X360    1,860,000         1,370,000       +36%      1,310,000     +42%

PS3      1,210,000          530,000          +128%    1,350,000     -10%

PSP**      429,000          288,000          +49%       654,700       -35%

PS2**      75,000            80,000             -7%          332,200       -78%

Total    7,224,000         5,046,000       +43%      10,777,000     -33%

** Leaked Dec 2010 figures on a Japanese video game website covering NPD – they appear legitimate though.

As December was a five week month, and November was a four week month, weekly DS sales increased on average by 37% (377k to 500k), while Wii increased 49% (472k from 318k), PS3 increased 82% on a weekly basis (242k from 132.5k), and X360 increased by a mere 9%, presumably on supply issues from 343,000 to 372,000 per week. Modest increases in weekly sales from November to December for most systems led to December hardware unit sales dropping 33% from December 2009 even with X360 increasing substantially. Without X360, all other hardware dropped 44% from last December.

The generation of machines continue to trend very well though. Current generation consoles are at 75m in the USA with several years of 10m unit per year growth left, PS2 + Xbox + GC reached only 70-75m units lifetime. In an aligned launch scenario, covering 12 month periods from launch onwards, Wii remains well ahead of PS2, and X360 continues to outperform PS2 in its later years as can be seen in the image below. X360 year five and six are actually ahead of the PS2 years five and six (11.5m in 2009-2010 for X360, 10.2m in 2004-2005 for PS2). With lifetime sales over 34m, Wii in 50 months i.e. Nov 2006 – Dec 2010 is where PS2 was in 71 months or Oct 2000 – Aug 2006, meaning Wii now stands 21 months ahead of the PS2 pace in the United States. Even DS had only sold 27.5m in the USA in Nov 2004- Dec 2008, nearly 7m behind the current Wii pace in the USA.

Still, Wii and X360 are at the closest they have been over the same time frame though, and now that Wii’s previous 12 months no longer include December 2009, the system is unlikely to ever perk up back up above 7m units. With price cuts though, it could stabilize near 6-7m for a while yet. At the very least, Wii can’t drop off by over a 1m as it did this month most months and so declines will soften again from here for a while.

It will also be interesting to see whether X360 has peaked or not – as Microsoft is claiming short supply for January and February, which presumably means the yellow line will dip because of low supply over the next two months. A rebound is likely from March onwards, but how much is an unknown as it will depend on the legs of Kinect. PS3 is now close to 15% off its peak sales over a 12 month period (4.9m, down to 4.3m), and may drop below 4m before Sony has a chance to cut price again.

Hardware sales in the United States dropped below 30m units in 2010 for the first time since 2007. Final 2010 figures for hardware systems are :

DS – 8.60 – 8.65m

Wii – 7.07m

X360 – 6.76m (best year ever for a Microsoft console, best Dec as well)

PS3 – 4.33m (less than 1% different from last year after tracking 550k ahead from Jan-Aug)

PSP – 1.65m

PS2 – 0.74m

All systems besides X360 were either flat (PS3) or down. DS and Wii each dropped over 2.5m from 2009,  while PS2 dropped about 1.1m, and PSP dropped 800,000. Lifetime to date, DS is now over 47m units in the USA, topping PS2, which should be right around 46m through December. As VGC forecasted in the “Changing of the Guard” article from several weeks ago, Microsoft hardware outsold Sony hardware for the first time in the USA in 2010 by a small margin – 6.76m (X360) to 6.72m (4.33m PS3s + 1.65m PSPs + 0.74m PS2s). Lifetime to date figures for systems still selling in the USA are at the following levels through December 2010.

DS – 47.3m (roughly – waiting on exact Dec figures)

PS2 – 45.8m – 45.9m

Wii – 34.19m

X360 – 25.39m

PSP – 18.48m

PS3 – 15.46m

NPD also revealed the biggest games of December 2010 in the USA and for the entire year.

Dec 2010 Top 10 Multiplatform List

01. Call of Duty: Black Ops (360, PS3, Wii, NDS, PC) ACTIVISION BLIZZARD – 3.6m
02. Just Dance 2 (Wii) UBISOFT
03. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm (PC) ACTIVISION BLIZZARD  – 1.50m
04. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood (360, PS3) UBISOFT
05. Donkey Kong Country Returns (Wii) NINTENDO
06. Disney Epic Mickey (Wii) DISNEY INTERACTIVE STUDIOS  – 1.32m
07. Madden NFL 11 (360, PS3, Wii, PS2, PSP) ELECTRONIC ARTS
08. Michael Jackson The Experience (Wii, NDS, PSP) UBISOFT
09. NBA 2K11 (360, PS3, Wii, PSP, PS2, PC) TAKE 2 INTERACTIVE
10. Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (360, PS3, Wii, PC) ELECTRONIC ARTS – 906,400

NR: Kinect Sports, Udraw Studio, Dance Central look like they each sold over 560,500 units. This can be seen logically because Gran Turismo 5 is not in the top 10 single sku list, while these games are. The top ten single-platform games were likely COD X360, COD PS3, JD2 Wii, AC X360, Michael Jackson Wii, DKC Wii, Epic Mickey, Kinect Sports, Udraw, Dance Central based on Anita Frazier comments and Industry Gamer’s GT5 figure below.

NR: Gran Turismo 5 (PS3) Sony – 560,500

Black Ops seems to have sold 3.6m in the USA by NPD, as total figures for 2010 are listed as over 12m units, and the game did 8.6m last month. The 8th place spot should be a million or more units, although figures are yet to come out.

Edit: 9th place may be over 1m units too in lieu of the numbers.

Annual Top Ten Multiplatform List

01. Call of Duty: Black Ops (360, PS3, Wii, PC, NDS) ACTIVISION BLIZZARD 12m
02. Madden NFL 11 (360, PS3, Wii, PS2, PSP) ELECTRONIC ARTS
03. Halo: Reach (360) MICROSOFT
04. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii) NINTENDO
05. Red Dead Redemption (360, PS3) TAKE 2 INTERACTIVE
06. Wii Fit Plus (Wii) NINTENDO
07. Just Dance 2 (Wii) UBISOFT  2.5m+ (1m in Oct-Nov, 1.5m + for Dec based on above)
08. Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (360, PS3, PC) ACTIVISION BLIZZARD
09. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood (360, PS3) UBISOFT
10. NBA 2K11 (360, PS3, PS2, PSP, Wii, PC) TAKE 2 INTERACTIVE > 1.32m as Epic Mickey sold 1.32m and isn’t in the top 10

Ubisoft’s Just Dance 2 rode a monster December into the top ten list overall. As Halo, NSMB, and Red Dead are known multi-million sellers, the top 10 likely cuts off at 2m units or more for the year.

NPD’s Anita Frazier noted: “The best-selling game for the month, and for the year, was Call of Duty: Black Ops. Year-to-date it has sold more than 12 million units across all platforms, which is more than twice as many as the second best-selling title of the year, Madden NFL ’11. This might lead some to think the industry is becoming more hit-driven with sales more concentrated among the top titles, but in fact, sales of the top 10 titles this year represented about the same percentage of total unit sales as they did last year.”

“On an SKU basis, games that are in the top 10 for the month that aren’t reflected in our title-level best-selling list include Kinect Sports from Microsoft, UDraw Studio with UDraw Tablet from THQ, and Dance Central from Microsoft. Outside of Black Ops and Assassin’s Creed, the top list on both a SKU and title level basis reflects an array of content that is appealing outside the core audience for gaming that you might expect to sell well during the holiday timeframe.”

“Among the top 10 titles for the month, two are third-party Wii games including Just Dance 2 from Ubisoft, which was the best-selling game for the month at the SKU level, and Epic Mickey from Disney.”

VGC will update this article as more information comes out.

Contact VGChartz at jmazel@vgchartz.com

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